Opinion | Real Change

Real Change
More than 500 COVID-19 response funds have been established. Where is the money going?

by Afi Tengue | July 22nd, 2020

When COVID-19 began devastating communities earlier this year, hundreds of community-based and social justice organizations set up funds to address its devastating impact. The funds focus on a wide range of issues, from helping small businesses stay afloat to providing meals to families in need to ensuring that students have the technology they need for remote learning.
Read more in the July 22-28, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
The indomitable spirit of 1920 and 2020

by Jill Mullins | July 15th, 2020

On the Fourth of July, I sat with my discontent of this celebration. As renowned civil rights activist and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall noted, the framers of the Constitution were not all that profound. They created a document that required several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to get us to a society that was beginning to recognize human rights. As the nation celebrates 233 years since the Constitution was ratified, we only celebrate 100 years since the women’s suffrage movement secured the passage of the 19th Amendment.
Read more in the July 15-21, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Machination: a dance popularized by Electric Boogaloo Dancers and Electoral College

by Dr. Wes Browning | July 15th, 2020

The Supreme Court has been very busy lately, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. So many rulings, so many rants to write. I’ll never finish.

SCOTUS ruled 9-0 that Washington State can require electors to vote for the candidate they are “supposed to” vote for.

In 2016, three electors who were expected to cast votes for Clinton instead did so for Colin Powell, hoping to inspire electors set to vote for Trump to do likewise. Washington slapped them with thousand dollar fines.
Read more in the July 15-21, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Point-in-time homelessness count doesn’t tell near the whole story

by Timothy Harris | July 15th, 2020

More than five full months after King County’s point-in-time count, the Regional Homeless Authority has finally released their snapshot of homelessness for Jan. 24, 2020. Seldom has so much effort delivered so little so late.
Read more in the July 15-21, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
How our movement taxed Amazon

by Eva Metz | July 15th, 2020

On July 6, City Council voted for a big business tax that will raise over $200 million each year to fund affordable housing. Contrary to the narrative that corporate media outlets like The Seattle Times are determined to peddle, this historic victory over Jeff Bezos is entirely due to the strength of our Tax Amazon movement, with the threat of taking our initiative to the ballot if City Council failed to act.
Read more in the July 15-21, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Strictly speaking, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Thus, inconsistency is the anti-hobgoblin. I hope no one is confused

by Dr. Wes Browning | July 8th, 2020

The results of the annual point-in-time count in King County are finally out. It took 160 days to completely cook the stew this time. I think that may be a record. It took so long that I had actually forgotten there had been a homeless count in January this year.
Read more in the July 8-14, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Deceit, conceit and mercy in Durkan’s Seattle

by John Helmiere | July 8th, 2020

Social psychologists note three traits among those most driven by the forces of revenge: (1) a preference for social dominance and hierarchies, (2) an acceptance of social norms and the importance of authority and (3) a need for the world to be predictable and orderly. Every day, videos spread over social media of white people waving guns or weaponizing police against Black people due to breaches of their preferences for dominance and orderliness. We need look no further than our own mayor and police to see these behaviors.
Read more in the July 8-14, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Black Collective Voice organizers reply to mayor’s executive order and CHOP sweep

by Seattle Black Collective Voice | July 8th, 2020

In the early hours of July 1, Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an executive order directing the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to clear the area known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP). The SPD arrived around 5 a.m. with an armored vehicle and more than 100 police officers to “liberate” the area from a few sleepy protesters and countless Seattle residents who are unhoused.
Read more in the July 8-14, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Working from home(less)

by Hanna Brooks Olsen | July 1st, 2020

The tempo of downtown Seattle has changed. Gone are the crowds of commuters getting on and off buses. Lunch spots that haven’t been without a line in years are dark most of the time; takeout hasn’t turned enough business to make it worth their while to re-open.

Instead of foot traffic, the sidewalks of Second and Third avenues are now populated by wrappers and discarded face masks, urban tumbleweeds blowing south.
Read more in the July 1-7, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Systemic racism is everywhere, even — and oddly— in math

by Dr. Wes Browning | July 1st, 2020

The U.S. Census Bureau is projecting that for the first time ever, U.S. kids under 16 are mostly either non-white or Hispanic, according to the Associated Press.

Over the whole population, non-Hispanic whites now account for 60 percent of the population, but the percentage is expected to drop to less than half by 2045, at least.

Immigration is accelerating the change, so white supremacists want to clamp down on immigration. But that’s not enough because the decline in the numbers of non-Hispanic whites is also due to their low birth rate compared to death rate.
Read more in the July 1-7, 2020 issue.
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